Inter Press ServiceCaribbean Climate Wire – Inter Press Servicehttp://www.ipsnews.net
News and Views from the Global SouthFri, 13 Sep 2019 21:17:01 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.10Renewables to Become the Norm for the Caribbeanhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/renewables-become-norm-caribbean/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=renewables-become-norm-caribbean
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/renewables-become-norm-caribbean/#commentsMon, 29 Apr 2019 13:57:39 +0000Desmond Brownhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=161361Jamaica and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are embracing renewable energy as part of their plans to become decarbonised in the coming decades. The Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, has committed the island nation to transitioning to 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. “I believe that we can do better. Jamaica has sunshine […]

A wind farm in Curacao. Caribbean nations such as Jamaica are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and many are embracing renewable energy. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond BrownKINGSTON, Apr 29 2019 (IPS)

Jamaica and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are embracing renewable energy as part of their plans to become decarbonised in the coming decades.

The Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, has committed the island nation to transitioning to 50 percent renewable energy by 2030.

“I believe that we can do better. Jamaica has sunshine all year round and strong winds in certain parts of the island,” Holness said.

Solar Head of State (SHOS), a nonprofit that helps world leaders become green leaders by installing solar panels on government buildings, has been assisting Jamaica and other Caribbean countries with their renewable energy transition.

James Ellsmoor, the group’s Director and Co-Founder, said they partnered with the Jamaica’s government to install and commission astate-of-the-art solar photovoltaic (PV) array at Jamaica House—the Office of the Prime Minister.

“Following similar installations by the President of the Maldives and Governor-General of Saint Lucia, Jamaica’s prominent adoption of solar, sets an example for other nations around the world that renewable energy can make a global impact,” Ellsmoor told IPS.

“While island nations such as Jamaica are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, this project is a reminder that they are also leading in finding solutions.”

Holness heralded the solar installation on his office as emblematic of the clean energy technologies that must be deployed by Caribbean nations to decarbonise economies, reduce regional fossil fuel use, and combat climate change.

“I have directed the government to increase our target from 30 percent to 50 percent, and our energy company is totally in agreement. So, I believe that by 2030, Jamaica will be producing more than 50 percent of its electricity from renewables.”

The installation of the state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic (PV) array at Jamaica House—the Office of the Prime Minister. Courtesy: Solar Head of State

Peter Ruddock, manager of renewable energy and energy efficiency at the state-owned Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, hailed the prime minister’s decision as a step in the right direction.

“We do have to look at our indigenous sources—the wind, the sun—it shows good leadership for the Office of the Prime Minister to be outfitted with solar panels, which will reduce their consumption,” Ruddock said.

Due to a historic lack of diversification of energy resources, Jamaica has been heavily reliant on imported fossils fuels, resulting in CO2 emissions and high electricity prices that are up to four times higher than the United States.

Caribbean nations are also vulnerable to hurricanes and extreme weather. Renewable energy increases islands’ resilience—stabilising electricity supply in the wake of natural disasters.

“We emit negligible greenhouse gases but when the impact comes we are most impacted,” Una May Gordon, Jamaica’s Director for Climate Change, told IPS.

“The prime minister believes in what we are doing. He believes that renewable energy has a role and a place in the Jamaica energy mix. A commitment has been made for transformation.

“We are building the resilience of the country. We have to transform a number of our production processes and the only way to do that is with renewables,” Gordon added.

SHOS believes the region’s youth can play a vital role in the climate change fight and has also conducted a solar challenge in partnership with Jamaica-based youth groups, which invited young people from across the island to create innovative communications projects to tell their communities about the benefits of renewable energy.

On the heels of a successful programme in Jamaica, SHOS is collaborating with the Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) to launch the Guyana Solar Challenge—a national competition in Guyana to engage and educate youth nationwide about the benefits of renewable energy.

“With our partners at CYEN we will run a Solar Challenge in every Caribbean country to educate young people about the benefits of renewable energy for their communities,” Ellsmoor told IPS.

“The economic and environmental conditions for the Caribbean are very specific to the region and often information coming from outside the region does not represent that. Launching this challenge in Guyana is particularly important as the country starts its journey into petroleum, and we want to show that the best opportunity is to invest these new funds into the sustainable development of the economy, and renewable energy is central to that,” he said.

The Guyana Solar Challenge is open to young people between 12 and 26 years of age. Competitors are asked to harness their creative energies (in any form such as a song/video, art installation, performance piece, viral meme, sculpture) towards raising awareness about renewable energy, specifically its potential to deliver long-term economic benefits, reduce harmful environmental impacts, and increase energy security and independence for Guyana. Winning projects will demonstrate creativity and an ability to educate the public about the specific benefits of solar energy for Guyana.

Sandra Britton, Renewable Energy Liaison at Guyana’s Department of Environment said she’s happy that young people are now taking the initiative to share the concept of renewable energy and to promote it as Guyana transitions to a green economy.

“We have developed the Green State Development Strategy, which will be rolled out shortly, and within the strategy it is envisioned that Guyana will try to move towards 100 percent renewable energy by 2040,” Britton said.

Sustainability is constitutive of the concept of development. Just as economist Amartya Sen has argued that there is no point in discussing the relationship between development and democracy, because democracy is constitutive of the concept of development, there is no point of trying to disentangle sustainability from the notion of development itself.

A key foundation to promoting sustainable development is thus strengthening resilience. We know that the development trajectory is not linear. Shocks of many different types disturb this path, and vulnerability to these shocks can slow down (or even reverse) progress. Resilience is the ability to return to a predetermined path of development in the shortest possible time after suffering from an adverse shock.

Luis Felipe López-Calva

For countries in the Caribbean, the challenge of strengthening resilience is particularly acute as nations suffer recurrent extreme weather-related events. Countries are continuously struggling to rebuild in the wake of the economic, social, and environmental damages inflicted by frequent exogenous shocks, such as tropical storms—storms which climate scientists have warned us are only getting wilder and more dangerous due to global warming.

This makes the probability of distribution over intensity of shocks one with “thicker tails” which in turn makes insurance more complex and expensive. As a recent IMF report found, “natural disasters occur more frequently and cost more on average in the Caribbean than elsewhere—even in comparison to other small states.” Since 1950, 324 disasters have taken place in the Caribbean, inflicting a loss of over 250,000 lives and affecting over 24 million people.

This #GraphForThought uses data from the International Disaster Database EM-DAT to look at the damages caused by storms in the Caribbean during the period 1963-2017. As the graph cycles through time, we see countries repeatedly experiencing storms.

Each grey dot represents a country’s loss in property, crops, and livestock due to total storm damages in a given year – expressed as a percentage of its national GDP (using GDP from the year before the storm).*

On average over time, we can see that countries in the Caribbean suffer yearly losses due to storm damages equivalent to 17% of their GDP (for years that they were hit by storms). Of course, this varies greatly across nations both due to the severity of storms as well as the size of countries’ GDP—ranging from an average loss of 1% in Trinidad and Tobago to an average loss of 74% in Dominica. In 2017 alone, Dominica lost the equivalent of 253% of its GDP (during Hurricane Maria).

This was just two years after it lost the equivalent of 92% of its GDP (during Hurricane Erika). These losses are compounded by losses resulting from other extreme natural events, such as earthquakes, floods and droughts.

The repercussions from these damages have long-term consequences at the national level. A recent cross-country study on the impact of cyclones on long run economic growth found that impacts on GDP persist as much as twenty years later.

Moreover, they find that “for countries that are frequently or persistently exposed to cyclones, these permanent losses accumulate, causing annual average growth rates to be 1-7.5 percentage points lower than simulations of “cyclone-free” counterfactuals.”

Thus, developing resilience to the repeated shocks faced by countries in the Caribbean is critical for ensuring their ability to pursue long-term growth. As the World Development Report 2017 argues “long-term growth is less about how fast one grows than about how often you trip along the way.”

The damage caused by extreme weather events can also lead to long-term consequences at the household-level. Using data on typhoons in the Philippines, a recent study found that in addition to the loss of durable assets, household income was reduced which is passed on through decisions to spend less on items such medicine, education, and high nutrient foods—decisions which may have long term consequences for the development of human capital.

In order to mitigate the serious consequences of shocks on development, we need to focus on strengthening resilience. The capacity of the countries in the region to strengthen the resilience of households will depend on the processes that allow households to make decisions that help them build their adaptation mechanisms.

Efficient, effective and flexible social protection systems to incorporate victims; early warning systems for disasters; investment in mitigation of environmental risks; and impact-resilient social services and infrastructure, are some of the ways through which governments in the region could build and strengthen resilience.

Moreover, in order to effectively strengthen resilience, we need to rethink how we evaluate it. Traditionally, economists have approached this notion from a perspective of ‘flows’ – such as GDP, consumption or income.

However, if we rely solely on this type of approach, efforts to strengthen resilience could take place at the expense of the depletion of the ‘stock’ of assets. For example, the recovery of GDP at the expense of natural capital.

Thus, if we truly believe that ‘sustainability is a constitutive element of development’, we need to move from an evaluation space defined by ‘flows’ to one that also includes a measure of ‘stocks.’ We need to think more broadly about the ‘wealth of nations’ by valuing not only their GDP but also their stock of natural, physical, human and social capital.
* Note: The sample is restricted to countries and years for which both storm data and GDP data are available.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/rain-lasting-effects-storms-caribbean/feed/0Q&A: Building Resilience through Waste Diversion and Reductionhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/qa-building-resilience-waste-diversion-reduction/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=qa-building-resilience-waste-diversion-reduction
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/qa-building-resilience-waste-diversion-reduction/#respondFri, 12 Apr 2019 16:25:14 +0000Alison Kentishhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=161156Jua Kali is a social enterprise tackling waste management and helping to reduce reliance on St. Lucia’s only landfill, which will reach the end of its lifespan in 2023. The company, with its slogan ‘Trashing the Idea of Waste,’ hosts waste collection drives through pop up depots that encourage residents to bring in glass, plastic and tin cans in exchange for […]

Jua Kali founder Laurah John. Jua Kali is a social enterprise tackling waste management and helping to reduce reliance on St. Lucia’s only landfill. Courtesy: Laurah John

By Alison KentishCASTRIES, Apr 12 2019 (IPS)

Jua Kali is a social enterprise tackling waste management and helping to reduce reliance on St. Lucia’s only landfill, which will reach the end of its lifespan in 2023. The company, with its slogan ‘Trashing the Idea of Waste,’ hosts waste collection drives through pop up depots that encourage residents to bring in glass, plastic and tin cans in exchange for supermarket shopping points.
This is happening as St. Lucia, like other small island states, faces climate resilience issues with freshwater quality and deterioration in marine and coastal ecosystems.
Jua Kali is the brainchild of Laurah John. She talks to IPS about why she established Jua Kali and the challenges that she has faced on the project.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Tell me about your background.

Laurah John (LJ): I am a purpose driven, creative rebel and sustainability change agent or at the very least I try to embody those traits through my work with Jua Kali Ltd. – a profit-for-purpose, social enterprise that seeks to provide innovative and sustainable resource recovery solutions to address waste management issues in Small Island Developing States through strategic partnerships.

Before Jua Kali, I was a Social Development Practitioner/Short-term Consultant for the World Bank and Caribbean Local Economic Development project. I was also employed with the Ministry of Social Transformation.

IPS: What led you to establish Jua Kali Ltd.?

LJ: In 2012, I completed a Master’s in Urban Studies from the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. My master’s thesis, “Wasted Lives: Determining the Feasibility of Establishing a Test Case Resource Recovery Programme in the Urban Poor Community of Faux-a-Chaud, Saint Lucia” sought to explore Resource Recovery as a tool for alleviating urban poverty, enhancing environmental sustainability and bettering communities. This research formed the basis of a business idea that led me and an eight person team to win the 8th [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation] UNESCO Youth Forum Startup Weekend in 2013 and led to the creation of Jua Kali Ltd. in August 2014.

IPS: Tell me about your slogan, ‘Trashing the Idea of Waste’.

LJ: We acknowledge waste as a design flaw in how we built our societies and do not see it as acceptable. We are challenging the public to re-think the concept of waste and question consumption patterns and how that contributes to the problem. We are empowering consumers to recognise that they have the right to leverage (their dollar) and demand that producers create better quality products that address the end-of-life reality of their goods.
Producers take limited resources to create goods that are bought then thrown out. If we no longer believe that waste is acceptable, it means that this product, once utilised, needs to feed into some other process for continuity – closing the loop!

IPS: How do you host collection drives and are you satisfied with public reception?

LJ: The collection drives are based on the Pop Up shop concept – hence the name Pop Up depots – where we set up shop with our tents, tables, chairs and army of volunteers, to create an area where the public may drop-off used household materials like plastic bottles and containers, glass jars and bottles, as well as cans and tins. In return, they receive points on their Massy Stores Loyalty Card. We set up twice a month.

We are very satisfied with the public’s reception! From our very first day back with the depots (Mar. 2, 2019), many people came up to us to say how happy they were that the depots had resumed, what a great initiative it is, and that they hoped it was coming back for good – encouraging words that reinforced that we are on the right path.

IPS: What are some of the challenges you face in this project?

LJ: Raising awareness is our biggest challenge. Airtime is expensive and although we have some sponsorship in this regard, much more is required to have a consistent presence to remind the public of the depots. Additionally, where people receive their information changes depending on what part of the island they reside. This requires a communications strategy that is both robust and multidimensional, pulling on a variety of platforms to target different audiences.

IPS: Where do you see Jua Kali in 5 years?

LJ: As a regional leader in socio-environmental stewardship.

IPS: Why is waste diversion and reduction so crucial to the climate change and environmental discussion?

LJ: To appreciate the importance of waste diversion and reduction activities and their contribution to the climate change and environmental discussion, we must first understand the severity of their impact. Typical disposal and treatment of waste in a landfill can produce emissions of several greenhouse gases (GHGs), most significantly methane, which contributes to global climate change. Other forms of waste disposal also produce GHGs though mainly in the form of carbon dioxide.

Additionally, improper waste disposal can create or exacerbate disasters, for example, by clogging waterways leading to flash flooding and creating hazardous public health conditions by contaminating water sources, creating breeding grounds for disease borne vectors such as mosquitoes. Furthermore, on a small island like Saint Lucia with a limited landmass, sending our trash to a landfill takes up valuable productive land. There has to be a better way!

IPS: Do you think the Caribbean is giving sustainable waste diversion and reduction due attention?

LJ: More and more, Caribbean countries are giving attention to the waste issue, primarily because of how visible it has become with the increased use of plastics, the international campaign against plastic pollution and the detrimental impact this can have on tourism based economies. There is also a growing awareness and research to highlight the negative impact of waste on water quality and fisheries. As such, this is driving action towards supporting initiatives like ours. Could it use more attention? Definitely, but we are making headway.

I would like to encourage the public to believe that small, individual actions to reduce or divert waste together will make a difference! #bethechange

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/04/qa-building-resilience-waste-diversion-reduction/feed/0Anguilla’s Fishers Share their First-Hand Knowledge About Climate Change and its Impacthttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/anguillas-fishers-share-first-hand-knowledge-climate-change-impact/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=anguillas-fishers-share-first-hand-knowledge-climate-change-impact
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/anguillas-fishers-share-first-hand-knowledge-climate-change-impact/#respondThu, 28 Mar 2019 09:32:45 +0000Jewel Fraserhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160890Fishers in Anguilla saw posted on Youtube this week a video they helped produce that depicts the impacts of climate change on their industry. Titled “Anguilla’s Fishing Dilemma”, the four-and-a-half minute video highlights some of the main challenges Anguilla’s 92 licensed fishers face in earning a living. Kenyetta Alord, one of the fishers who worked […]

Fishers in Anguilla saw posted on Youtube this week a video they helped produce that depicts the impacts of climate change on their industry. Titled “Anguilla’s Fishing Dilemma”, the four-and-a-half minute video highlights some of the main challenges Anguilla’s 92 licensed fishers face in earning a living.

Kenyetta Alord, one of the fishers who worked on the video, told IPS that the video was important to “demonstrate to people that you definitely need help.” He and several other fishers produced the video as part of a workshop sponsored by the UK’s Darwin Plus project for climate change adaptation in fisheries. Darwin Plus helps Britain’s overseas territories, including those in the Eastern Caribbean such as Anguilla, by funding projects in the areas of conservation and environmental sustainability.

Twenty-five participants attended the workshop, including delegates from the Anguilla National Trust, dive operators, and government agencies that work in fisheries and marine resource management, Granderson said.

“The idea is that there is a lot of local knowledge about the impacts [of climate change] that have not been tapped into by the authorities,” she said. “So the workshop was to get [participants] thinking about how they can share their knowledge and raise awareness about these specific aspects.”

Granderson said fishers often may not have “a clear voice” when it comes to decision making with regard to the fishing industry. The workshop on communications using participatory videos was designed to help them “say what are their priority needs and what are the actions they would like to see to build their resilience.”

The fishing industry is important for Anguilla’s economy, said Director of Anguilla’s Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources Kafi Gumbs. She told IPS via e-mail that the fishing industry is “the second highest revenue generator” for Anguilla. “Besides revenue, it forms an important part of the locals’ diet and culture.”

She said authorities in Anguilla were concerned that the impacts of climate change could lead to the collapse of the fishing industry and related ecosystem services. In addition, her department was concerned about possible migration “and/or no or delayed migration” of some pelagics; sea level rise; loss of calcium carbonate plants and animals such as conch and lobster, the latter being Anguilla’s main fisheries export; as well as damage to reefs and water inundation, since “a lot of the hospitality businesses which the local fishers depend on are along the coast.”

The fishers also feel the impacts of climate change in the form of rougher seas, said Granderson, that seriously reduce the number of days they are able to fish. “Snow storms in the U.S. produce groundswells, making very rough sea conditions. Every two weeks there are days when they cannot go out. It is an ongoing issue.”

Alord confirmed that rough seas pose a major challenge for local fishers. “Now you have to wait at least a month or two before you go out. Before, there were calm days in every month,” he said. But “now we have to wait two months to go out, so we are earning a lot less.”

And because of the increasing fishing effort required, due in part to the effects of climate change, fishers also have to go further out to sea, greatly increasing their fuel costs. “Fuel is incredibly expensive on these small islands, which rely on fossil fuel. They spend a lot of money,” Granderson told IPS.

Alord told IPS that his boat, which carries a crew of three, routinely spends hundreds of dollars on fishing trips in one week.

He said the training in video production was valuable for helping the fishers to showcase their concerns. It helped them appreciate the importance of identifying a target audience for their video, as well as helped them in crafting their message in the most effective way.

Alord said, “We had to show why we need these things in place. We have to present the videos in the most [graphic] way where we definitely have to make them understand what we are saying.”

Granderson said the workshop training was successful partly because most of the fishers in Anguilla are young.”Because of that they were very accustomed to using Youtube.There was already a fisher who has his own Youtube channel that everybody follows, so they were tech savvy and used to using video,” Granderson said.

She said she was pleased with the response of the Anguillan fishers and their turnout for the workshop, which was unusually high.”There are a lot requests for their time, so there is a lot of stakeholder fatigue.” She added that the quality of the video produced was also superior to that of other participatory videos CANARI had done over the years. “We will do an official launch next week….The feedback was generally very positive,” Granderson said.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/anguillas-fishers-share-first-hand-knowledge-climate-change-impact/feed/0Q&A: Guyana’s Roadmap to Become a Green Statehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-guyanas-roadmap-become-green-state/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=qa-guyanas-roadmap-become-green-state
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-guyanas-roadmap-become-green-state/#respondTue, 26 Mar 2019 12:29:32 +0000Desmond Brownhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160863In 2008, the then president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, established within the Ministry of the Presidency the Office of Climate Change. Guyana became the first country in the region to do so. A year later, Jagdeo set out a vision to forge a new low carbon economy in the Caribbean nation. Jagdeo’s vision was translated […]

With approximately 90 percent of Guyana’s population living below sea level, the country says it needs to adapt and build resilience. But Janelle Christian, head of the Office of Climate Change in Guyana says unlocking needed financial support is a major challenge. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond BrownGEORGETOWN, Mar 26 2019 (IPS)

In 2008, the then president of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, established within the Ministry of the Presidency the Office of Climate Change. Guyana became the first country in the region to do so. A year later, Jagdeo set out a vision to forge a new low carbon economy in the Caribbean nation.

Jagdeo’s vision was translated into a national strategy as outlined in Guyana’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) after more than a year of review and consultation within Guyana, coupled with input from climate change negotiations at the United Nations.

The aim of the LCDS was the achievement of two goals: transforming Guyana’s economy to deliver greater economic and social development for the population by following a low carbon development path; and providing a model for the world of how climate change can be addressed through low carbon development in developing countries, if the international community takes the necessary collective actions, especially relating to REDD+.

Head of the Office of Climate Change Janelle Christian told IPS that the office continues to fulfil its mandate even though there has been a change of administration.

“We have started the process for preparation of our national climate change policy,” Christian said.

“We have concluded work on the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action for Greening of Towns.”

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Janelle Christian, head of the Office of Climate Change in Guyana. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Inter Press Service (IPS): What is the government doing to develop national climate change strategies?

Janelle Christian (JC): When the government changed, back in 2015, the new government advocated the vision for Guyana to become a green state and so the Department of Environment has been working over the last two years to elaborate the Green State Development Strategy. That strategy is looking at low carbon development across all sectors. When compared to the LCDS, which is looking at our mitigation contribution through sound management of our forest resources, the Green State Development Strategy is looking at advancing what we have started under the LCDS but also looking to maximise our renewable energy potential through the full mix of the opportunities available in that field, and also to ensure that our future development as we proceed as a country would ensure that we pursue that development on a low carbon path.

IPS: How different are the strategies and plans being developed on the President David Granger administration compared with those under the Jagdeo administration?

JC: We have been, and continue to work in crafting and in some instances revising some of our existing strategies so that they’re aligned with the new vision. So, what we have been working on, specifically with support from many of our multilateral partners – we have started the process for preparation of our national climate change policy. We are in the process of revising our climate resilience strategy and action plan and the output will be our National Adaptation Plan (NAP) aligned with the Green State Development Strategy main pillars. We have concluded work on the Nationally Appropriately Mitigation Action for Greening of Towns. We’ve also completed our Technology Needs Assessment.

IPS: Who are some of the development partners you’ve been working with to get projects off the ground?

JC: We have largely been working with existing global facilities for the mobilisation of climate finance to not only address some of the gaps and strengthen some of our existing programmes, but mobilise resources for sector-specific initiatives. We have been engaging very closely with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and have successfully been able to mobilise what is called readiness support. The first one that we would have implemented was what is called the NDA [National Designated Authorities] strengthening through the GCF and that was with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre and that work has concluded. That really set the tone for further engagement and how we engage with the GCF.

Since then we would have successfully worked with the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations] and we would have been able to mobilise some resources specifically through the GCF, again focusing on getting the agriculture sector ready and also working with the sector to develop a concept proposal for submission to the GCF for investment-type support to the sector given its priority. We received notice of approval from the GCF for readiness support for our energy sector – largely renewable energy and also some private sector support. Because, we know, for climate solution it requires both public and private sector investment.

IPS: What else do you have going on in terms of climate change adaptation and mitigation?

JC: We have advanced work for support of the president’s vision for Bartica, which was identified as a model green town. We have just concluded all of the baseline data-type studies that were required for Bartica as we get ready to plan and identify specific type investments for that community.

IPS: Going forward, what would you say are the main challenges facing Guyana and other developing countries in fighting climate change?

JC: Support…They talk about the developed providing support to developing. And when we talk about that support, we’re talking about financing, which is the top challenge because these interventions for adaptation to increase our resilience require lots of investments. So, financing. While they will tell you that there are lots of established climate financing mechanism, to unlock those resources is really a challenge in itself. So, then the capacity of the country to be able to understand the systems, the modalities; to be able to elaborate the proposals that would then be successful and allow for their approval – those allow you to implement.

So, the financing and then the capacity in-country to unlock the financing, or the capacity in-country to have the right skill set in specialised areas, and of course we need technology also. Of course, technology requires money again. But even when you have technical support for the deployment of technology, again you have to be able to use the technology correctly. Then as a country you have to ensure that you have the sustainability component incorporated into your national systems so that those can be successfully infused as part of your operation over the long term. Those are the main things I would say for countries such as ours. How do you make a decision when you have limited finance to address the realities of what is before you?

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-guyanas-roadmap-become-green-state/feed/0Climate Change Also Affects Mental Health in Mexicohttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/climate-change-also-affects-mental-health-mexico/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=climate-change-also-affects-mental-health-mexico
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/climate-change-also-affects-mental-health-mexico/#respondTue, 19 Mar 2019 18:22:31 +0000Emilio Godoyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160706Minerva Montes lost her home on Holbox Island in 2005 when Hurricane Wilma hit the Yucatan Peninsula in southeastern Mexico. Rebuilding her home was quicker and easier than overcoming the psychological aftermath of the catastrophe. “They activated the evacuation alarm, I didn’t know what to do, I packed my things and put them on the […]

Tourists cool off from high temperatures on the beach at the archaeological site of Tulum, in the southeastern Yucatan peninsula, an area of Mexico highly vulnerable to climate change. Powerful hurricanes, storms, drought, heat waves and rising sea levels are climate change effects that impact the mental health of the country's population. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio GodoyMEXICO CITY, Mar 19 2019 (IPS)

Minerva Montes lost her home on Holbox Island in 2005 when Hurricane Wilma hit the Yucatan Peninsula in southeastern Mexico. Rebuilding her home was quicker and easier than overcoming the psychological aftermath of the catastrophe.

“They activated the evacuation alarm, I didn’t know what to do, I packed my things and put them on the ground floor, because I had heard that the wind didn’t hit there. But I didn’t know then about the effects of the flood,” she said."The first thing is to save lives and get people into safe places. And after that comes the psychosocial intervention. What we pay a lot of attention to is the kind of reaction they have to such an extreme situation. Some people manage to overcome the situation on their own and help others, whole others continue to feel panic." -- Jorge Álvarez

Montes, who is involved in wildlife rehabilitation, had just moved to the island a year earlier. The island, located about 1,600 kilometers from Mexico City and home to some 2,000 people, forms part of the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas in the state of Quintana Roo. And she had only been living in a house on the edge of the beach for a few months.

Montes, whose adult son no longer lived with her, took temporary refuge in the town of Tizimín, in the neighboring state of Yucatán, waiting for the emergency to pass and for her partner to return from abroad. A week later, she returned to what had been her home.

“What we saw was shocking, there were holes in the ground everywhere. I had the suspicion that I was not going to find anything (of the house). There were no walls, only the roof was still there. Everything I had put away to protect it had disappeared,” she told IPS during a trip through the Yucatán peninsula to observe how the local population is adapting to climate change.

Montes, who turned her nearly demolished house into a small hotel, sensed that the worst was coming, although she did not describe what she felt as fear. “You’re left with the feeling that you’re starting over. It was a hard and painful experience. It is not easy to be the victim of a disaster,” she said.

Hurricane Wilma, which reached a category 5 force due to the speed of its winds and the volume of rain dumped, making it one of the most powerful of the 21st century, hit Mexico’s Atlantic coast from Oct. 21-23, 12 years ago, to continue its destructive path towards the U.S. state of Florida.

Millions of people have suffered the same experience, exposed to the onslaught of climate change and its psychological consequences, which require attention and can become a public health problem as storms, floods, droughts and heat waves become more severe.

Mexico is highly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.

A total of 480 Mexican municipalities are especially exposed to the phenomenon, of the 2,457 into which the country is divided, according to a report by the government’s National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC). The risks, the study estimated, threaten more than 50 million people, out of a total population of 128 million.

The Yucatan Peninsula, which divides the Gulf of Mexico in the Caribbean Sea, encompasses the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatan, and plays a key climate role, as it is home to rainforest that regulates water flow and temperatures in the region. Credit: Public domain

Particularly vulnerable to global warming, the Yucatán peninsula, which includes the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, plays a vital climate role, as it is home to rainforest that regulates water flow and temperatures in the region.

This year, springtime began a month earlier than usual, surprising people with unusually high temperatures in several areas of the country, while the weather service is now forecasting rain in the coming weeks.

The climate footprint on health

The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) has highlighted the impact on mental health of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes or droughts, during its 2017 regional health conference, which was held shortly after three unusually strong hurricanes wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, especially in island countries.

According to the United Nations regional agency, climate change will be a factor in the emergence of new diseases, particularly in the countries most vulnerable to the phenomenon, such as Caribbean island nations, and especially infectious, respiratory, cardiac and mental diseases. It called on governments to adapt their health policies to the new situation.

Globally, according to PAHO, it is estimated that in the 2030s the climate footprint on health will cause 250,000 additional deaths annually, from diseases such as those highlighted by the agency.

The latest official data confirms that this country is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) in Latin America, following Brazil, with the launch into the atmosphere of 446.7 million net tons, according to figures from 2016 published last year by INECC.

For Jorge Álvarez, coordinator of the Crisis Intervention Programme for Victims of Disasters in the psychology department of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the impact is important and the situation is only going to get worse, since the climate roulette unleashed by human activity continues to spin.

“The first thing is to save lives and get people into safe places. And after that comes the psychosocial intervention. What we pay a lot of attention to is the kind of reaction they have to such an extreme situation. Some people manage to overcome the situation on their own and help others, whole others continue to feel panic,” he told IPS.

While Mexico has made progress in issuing early warnings for other climate events, as well as in its rapid disaster response system, the mental health of victims could become a critical issue.

This country ranks among the 10 nations and territories in the world with the highest absolute disaster losses, amounting to 46.5 billion dollars from storms, on a list headed by the United States, with 944.8 billion in losses.

This is indicated in the 2018 report “Economic losses, poverty and disasters 1998-2017”, produced by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters of the School of Public Health of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

Between 2000 and 2019, Mexico issued 2,145 emergency, disaster and extreme weather warnings, 1,998 – or 93 percent – of which were in response to hydrometeorological events, while the remaining seven percent responded to geological, chemical and health problems.

On the other hand, according to the government’s National Risk Atlas, natural and man-made disasters have left a death toll of at least 7,700, more than 27 million people affected by losses and more than 21 billion dollars in damage.

The DN-III-E Plan, implemented by the Secretariat (ministry) of National Defence in disasters, includes immediate psychological care, but is ambiguous as to the follow-up of victims.

The link between these events and climate change is already attracting the attention of academia.

The authors of the report, researchers based in universities in Canada, Chile and the United States, compared temperature and suicide data from hundreds of counties and municipalities between the years 1990 and 2010.

They also studied depressive language in more than 600 million social media updates to assess whether hotter temperatures affected mental well-being.

“This effect is similar in hotter versus cooler regions and has not diminished over time, indicating limited historical adaptation,” says the report, which projects that “unmitigated climate change” could lead to between 9,000 and 40,000 additional suicides across the United States and Mexico by 2050.

Montes is afraid another disaster could happen.. “A category 4 or 5 hurricane could wipe out everything. It frightens me to think about what could happen to people, the wildlife and vegetation. If the island disappears, there is no plan B, where to go? who to go to? I’m in a more vulnerable situation than if I lived in a city,” she lamented.

She says the government should provide more assistance. “Psychological support is essential, because people need to regain emotional security. The fear of losing one’s life, one’s health, everything you face afterward, paralyses you,” she said.

According to Álvarez, psychological follow-up and prevention are fundamental. “Disasters also involve socio-organisational aspects, which include many factors. A disaster aggravates existing conflicts,” he said.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/climate-change-also-affects-mental-health-mexico/feed/0Q&A: Caribbean Losing Momentum on Climate Change and Concerted Action is Neededhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-caribbean-losing-momentum-climate-change-concerted-action-needed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=qa-caribbean-losing-momentum-climate-change-concerted-action-needed
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-caribbean-losing-momentum-climate-change-concerted-action-needed/#respondMon, 18 Mar 2019 20:00:47 +0000Alison Kentishhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160687In 2015, the Caribbean was “the region that could” on the climate change scene. Countries rallied under the ‘1.5 to Stay Alive’ banner, in the face of an existential threat. The now former Sustainable Development Minister of Saint Lucia Dr. James Fletcher emerged as a climate change champion at the time. But now, three years […]

Climate change and a lack of care for the environment could have devastating consequences for Saint Lucia’s healthy ecosystems and rich biodiversity. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Alison KentishCASTRIES, Mar 18 2019 (IPS)

In 2015, the Caribbean was “the region that could” on the climate change scene. Countries rallied under the ‘1.5 to Stay Alive’ banner, in the face of an existential threat. The now former Sustainable Development Minister of Saint Lucia Dr. James Fletcher emerged as a climate change champion at the time. But now, three years on, the scientist is giving regional climate action a C- in an assessment.

“We had tremendous momentum going into Paris. We had everyone engaged; journalists, civil society, the Caribbean Youth Environment Network and artistes. Now, it’s as if having achieved the Paris agreement, we patted ourselves on our shoulders, said job well done and dropped some of the enthusiasm,” he told IPS.
Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): What are your thoughts on developments since leading a team of negotiators to the Paris Talks?

Dr. James Fletcher (JF): We have excellent Caribbean negotiators and they continue to ensure that we preserve the things we fought so hard for, such as loss and damage in the agreement and the 1.5.

Last year, the tabling of the special 1.5 report was an important development but we did not seem to have much success in getting the COP to formally recognise the report. The language spoke about ‘noting’ rather than ‘embracing and endorsing’ the recommendations. That was disappointing.

The biggest disappointment, however, is the disengagement of the political apparatus. Going into Paris, we had the engagement of the Caribbean’s political apparatus.

We had the CARICOM chairman, who at the time was Prime Minister of Barbados Freundel Stuart. CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque was present and so was the former Prime Minister of Saint Lucia Dr. Kenny Anthony, who had responsibility for climate change. We had leaders who were engaged, stayed with us, helped to develop momentum in talking to people like Ban Ki Moon, the then Secretary General of the United Nations and former U.S. President Barack Obama, to ensure that we had political support.

That political engagement has stopped, not just at the level of heads of government, but also at the ministerial level. You don’t see that coalition of Caribbean ministers speaking strongly, with one voice, on climate change anymore and we’ve lost as a result.

Dr. James Fletcher (second from left), with Jamaican artistes and the Director General of the OECS Commission Dr. Didacus Jules (far right) celebrate the success of the 1.5 to Stay Alive Campaign during the Paris Climate Talks. Courtesy: Dr. James Fletcher

IPS: At the highest levels, how can we improve the climate change discussion?

JF: Unfortunately, we’ve changed the narrative to one just on climate finance. When our ministers, prime ministers and Saint Lucia’s prime minister, who has responsibility for climate change, speak, they speak almost exclusively about mobilising climate finance. Finance is extremely important, but not the only thing that we should be agitating for. If we cannot get industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to get us closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius, it doesn’t matter what level of climate financing we mobilise, we will not be able to stay ahead. We’ll have catastrophic impacts that no amount of money will help mitigate.

IPS: Do you think the realities of the last few hurricane seasons have made people more aware of the realities of climate change?

JF: Absolutely. Caribbean civil society is clued in to climate change. It’s heartening when I walk around and people tell me, ‘Every time we hear about climate change we think of the work that you guys did,’ and ‘This is serious, what are we going to do?’

Hurricanes Maria and Irma brought home climate change in a very real way to Dominica, the British Virgin Islands and other islands. People understand how dramatic and catastrophic climate change can be.
Fishers tell you that the fish catch is not what it used to be. They have to go much further out now to catch the pelagic [fish] that they were used to catching and are not getting the catches that they used to. In many different ways and sectors, people are experiencing climate change.

IPS: You are assisting Dominica to build climate resilience. How important is a body like the Climate Resilience Execution Agency of Dominica (CREAD)?

JF: The prime minister, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria made a bold statement that he would make Dominica the first climate-resilient country in the world. CREAD is the vehicle to get that done.

I was asked to stay on to develop the Dominica Climate Resilience and Recovery Plan, which is the overarching plan out of which CREAD’s work plan flows. It’s the blueprint for how Dominica will become climate resilient. It’s based on three pillars; prudent disaster risk management, building resilient systems and effective disaster response and recovery, understanding that Dominica, like other Caribbean islands, will be impacted by hurricanes. With climate change, warmer oceans, warmer temperatures, you will have more severe hurricanes. At some point, every one of us will be in a position where we will have to recover from a hurricane or major storm.

IPS: Caribbean countries are pushing renewable energy programmes. Are you happy with what you are seeing?

JF: I think we could have done more, particularly in Saint Lucia. We should have had a 12 megawatt (MW) wind farm. We dropped the ball and, unfortunately, when the government tried to pick up that ball, the investor died in a tragic plane accident. I’ve been informed that the government, along with the Saint Lucia Electricity Services (LUCELEC), is trying to reactivate those discussions with another partner.

The commissioning of a 3.2 MW solar farm by LUCELEC is a step in the right direction. LUCELEC is hoping to build more utility-scale solar photovoltaic facilities with battery storage. The price of solar is going down and hopefully the price of battery storage will also go down.

The window for geothermal is closing. The cheaper solar and battery storage get, the more unattractive geothermal will become, because geothermal is a risky proposition. ….Dominica has made some serious inroads there, as has St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We’re a bit behind the curve, but hopefully Saint Lucia can get some test wells drilled and see what potential there is.

IPS: Is there any project that you would like to see undertaken?

JF: We planned on replacing 21,000 high pressure sodium street lights that cost the government around 11 million dollars annually, with LED lights…..we had a project with the Caribbean Development bank through blended financing…..we would be able to reduce the spend on electricity from streetlights to five million dollars. That project, for some reason, the government decided not to pursue, to the chagrin of the CDB because they were going to use Saint Lucia as a pilot.

The second one involves energy legislation. We’ve done quite a bit of work as we have an Electricity Supply Act that basically gives LUCELEC a monopoly for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. That makes it impossible for any independent power producer to come in and get involved in the generation of electricity from renewable sources…… for some reason this has stalled. I really would like to see that legislation come into parliament this year.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-caribbean-losing-momentum-climate-change-concerted-action-needed/feed/0Scholar Questions ‘Techie’ Approach to Dealing with Climate Changehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/scholar-questions-techie-approach-dealing-climate-change/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=scholar-questions-techie-approach-dealing-climate-change
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/scholar-questions-techie-approach-dealing-climate-change/#respondFri, 15 Mar 2019 13:59:35 +0000Jewel Fraserhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160639Trinidad and Tobago unveiled its monitoring, reporting and verification system in mid-March with a flourish, with government authorities underscoring the launch of the Monitoring, Reporting, Verification as a milestone in that country’s efforts to reduce its emissions in line with its commitments under the 2016 Paris agreement. And even while acknowledging the Intergovernmental Panel on […]

Trinidad and Tobago unveiled its monitoring, reporting and verification system in mid-March with a flourish, with government authorities underscoring the launch of the Monitoring, Reporting, Verification as a milestone in that country’s efforts to reduce its emissions in line with its commitments under the 2016 Paris agreement. And even while acknowledging the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report that current efforts such as these globally are unlikely to protect the world from warming more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, Trinidad and Tobago’s lead negotiator at climate negotiations since 1998, Kishan Kumarsingh, remains upbeat that his country is on the right path.

He told IPS the Paris agreement is the foundation for a world a transition thanks to the exercise of “political will” and national sovereignty.

“It all goes back to the function of political will,” he said. “Because the efficacy of international law is invariably a function of political will because it is underpinned by national sovereignty.” He said it was governments that would create an enabling environment for a carbon free world since it was these same governments, not private citizens, that negotiate climate agreements.

But Dr. Leon Sealey-Huggins, a senior teaching fellow in Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick and a self-proclaimed scholar activist, is of the view that that is where the problem lies for the Caribbean in its efforts to secure its future against climate change.

“Whether or not it’s even possible through the United Nations framework to achieve the kind of change needed for the Caribbean is questionable,” Sealey-Huggins told IPS.

“The global structures of decision-making such as the UN are born out of a legacy of imperialism and globalism,” he said, with its unequal power structures and wealth distribution that have contributed to the current difficulties the Caribbean faces with climate change and its inability to successfully defend itself against it.

As a consequence, Sealey-Huggins said, the solutions promoted at climate change negotiations tended to focus on funding for“more technical approaches” like MRV systems that do not allow for the kinds of “social, political and economic reorganisation” that could shift the climate agenda towards more meaningful transformation and innovative solutions.

Trinidad and Tobago’s new MRV system will focus on emissions from industry, transportation and power generation, enabling identification of the source and quantity of emissions, and helping with efforts to reduce emissions in these three sectors by 15 percent by 2030, a press release from that country’s Ministry of Planning and Development said.

But such solutions “limit other options in terms of what is funded”, limiting research on other potential solutions, said Sealey-Huggins, in spite of the evidence that the global trajectory on carbon emissions reductions is insufficient to achieve the Paris goals.

Nevertheless, Kumarsingh maintains there are signs of real progress, particularly since Copenhagen. He points to the launch of the Green Climate Fund which was agreed upon at Copenhagen, and the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism for dealing with the sticky question of loss and damage.

“The Green Climate Fund is one manifestation of advancement for provision of finances and support…to developing countries,” he said. “It is not a cut and dried issue that the interests of developing countries are locked out of negotiations, because they are negotiations by nature and even among the developed countries, among the developing countries there are varying interests.”

He said the issue of loss and damage has proved to be “challenging”. Besides this, however, “there is widespread acceptance that beyond adaptation there is the issue of permanent loss, permanent damage that needs to be addressed.”

But how these issues would be addressed remains to be determined since monetary compensation alone might not be sufficient to compensate for the loss.

“Would a monetary compensation for the loss of an island be adequate for the people themselves?…. these ideas are now being ventilated and discussed. But the cut and dried issue of compensation just won’t happen because of the historical nature of the negotiations themselves,” Kumarsingh told IPS.

He stressed that countries sit at the negotiating table with the intention uppermost in mind of protecting their own country’s interest, not that of another. And while developed countries had accepted they have a responsibility towards SIDS in terms of technology transfer and financing, he acknowledged that their delivery of such help could be increased.

“Of course more could be done to advance the multilateral cooperation to protect the planet as a whole from climate change because climate change is everybody’s business, particularly given the urgency and the accelerating rate of climate change we have seen in recent years,” Kumarsingh added.

Grenada’s former Ambassador to the UN Dessima Williams, who was chair of the Association of Small Island States from 2009 to 2012, told IPS that the effects of climate events on the region’s economic development was a cause for great concern and needed greater action.

“The issue of risk has to be broadened from beyond climate events” to factor in the increasing financial burdens these events are placing on countries that are already strapped with development debt, she said. Williams said the question of climate financing must be placed firmly on the climate agenda “in a meaningful way to impact debt reduction and share the burden in an equitable way.”

However, whether Caribbean SIDS do get their concerns over financing on the agenda “could very well be an issue of negotiating capacity and negotiating skills to actually get what [we] want,” Kumarsingh concluded.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/scholar-questions-techie-approach-dealing-climate-change/feed/0Helping St. Vincent’s Fishers Maintain an Essential Industry in a Changing Climatehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/helping-st-vincents-fishers-maintain-essential-industry-changing-climate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=helping-st-vincents-fishers-maintain-essential-industry-changing-climate
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/helping-st-vincents-fishers-maintain-essential-industry-changing-climate/#respondThu, 14 Mar 2019 10:55:40 +0000Kenton X. Chancehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160631From an influx of sargassum in near-shore waters, to fish venturing further out to sea to find cooler, more oxygenated water, fishers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines are battling the vagaries of climate change. The country is doing what it can to respond.

From an influx of sargassum in near-shore waters, to fish venturing further out to sea to find cooler, more oxygenated water, fishers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines are battling the vagaries of climate change. The country is doing what it can to respond.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/helping-st-vincents-fishers-maintain-essential-industry-changing-climate/feed/0Q&A: Inventor from a Small Fishing Village in Saint Lucia Provides Hope for Water Woeshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-inventor-small-fishing-village-saint-lucia-provides-hope-water-woes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=qa-inventor-small-fishing-village-saint-lucia-provides-hope-water-woes
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-inventor-small-fishing-village-saint-lucia-provides-hope-water-woes/#respondMon, 11 Mar 2019 13:22:37 +0000Alison Kentishhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160548Karlis Noel spends his days in his lab in the small, picturesque community of Laborie in St. Lucia. The former fisherman’s story might sound like an overnight success, but his present accolades in the field of engineering are the result of years of hard work and an unceasing drive to make life easier for communities […]

Karlis Noel spends his days in his lab in the small, picturesque community of Laborie in St. Lucia. The former fisherman’s story might sound like an overnight success, but his present accolades in the field of engineering are the result of years of hard work and an unceasing drive to make life easier for communities in the throes of a water crisis.

Noel was not able to complete secondary school, but he never allowed that to interfere with his thirst for knowledge. The self-taught inventor, with a knack for engineering, is receiving acclaim for building the Eastern Caribbean’s first solar-powered, mobile desalination plant. With a grant from the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Program (GEF-SGP) to the Laborie Fishers and Consumers Cooperative Project, Noel was able to build the facility, which can produce 1,000 gallons of water daily.

The facility is a marvel to behold. It is located near the ocean, opens up ‘transformers-style’ to get the desalination process going andif there is a storm, it can be folded up, taken away and stored in a safe place until the all-clear is given.

In 2018, Noel built a second generation desalination facility for the Government of Nauru in the Pacific, a country beset with problems sourcing potable water. His determination to help solve the water crises was recently recognised by the Government of St. Lucia. Noel received the Saint Lucia Les Pitons Medal (Gold) for having performed long and meritorious service in the field of entrepreneurship and community development.

IPS spoke to Noel from his lab about his plans for the future, the destination for his next solar-powered mobile desalination unit and why he always has Dominica in mind when hammering away on his units. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Your solar-powered, mobile desalination unit is creating waves and has made it across the world to help the country of Nauru deal with its water crisis. Did you ever think that your invention would one day help nations?

Karlis Noel (KN): I knew it was going to make waves, but what surprised me was the short space of time it took to gain such wide appeal, after the very first video of the facility hit social media. It’s such a good feeling to help a country that needs potable water. I didn’t do it with money in mind, I wanted to help, to make a difference. Just knowing that I can assist in this way is an accomplishment for me.

IPS: Walk me through the process. How exactly does the system work? What sets it apart from other desalination facilities?

KN: Desalination in itself is not new. Reverse osmosis is not new. It is mature technology. What makes this system different is that it is fully mobile and solar powered and there is no brine discharged into the sea. There is a waste management system.

The other thing is that the latest system I developed works on a very broad spectrum. So it can purify anything from fresh water to highly saline water, making it possible to use it by the sea or the river or any source of contaminated water. That’s what makes it unique.

IPS: Tell me about the original problem that your community of Laborie faced, which gave rise to this invention?

KN: Strangely, during droughts we have no water, but one would think that when it rains we actually have a lot of water, but this is not the case. When it rains, the water company has to shut down the system due to debris etc, so we have a situation where when there’s drought we are without and when it rains we are also without water.

IPS: Can this facility help other communities facing water crises?

KN: Definitely, but there is also an issue that I have noted from my research work with farmers. The sea water levels are rising and this means that salt water is entering our rivers at a faster rate. The farmers in some communities (for example Roseau in St. Lucia) are faced with a serious problem as they can no longer irrigate their crops with water from the river. Farmers in the community of Black Bay (south of St. Lucia) are facing a similar problem. We are now getting salt water, two miles into the river. So this presents another aspect of the water scarcity issue, with salt water taking over our rivers. Eventually these communities will need a machine like this to ensure there is fresh water to irrigate fields.

IPS: How do you see it helping post disaster in our region?

KN: This is the bigger goal of this project. What I’m trying to do right now is shrink the facility. If I can make it both smaller and more efficient, for example being able to get 10,000 or 20,000 gallons of fresh water a day from a much smaller unit, this would be ideal.

It means it can be easily deployed post-disaster. This is important to me because we are going to get more severe storms. It will be necessary to have smaller, more affordable systems with higher output.

My dream is to design a unit that can fit in the back of a car, easily put on board a helicopter, for easy transportation to any community or country that needs it.

For some reason, when I’m designing, I have Dominica in mind. I know what that country went through following the devastation of Hurricane Maria and I want to ensure that I can do my part to help any sister island in their time of need.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/qa-inventor-small-fishing-village-saint-lucia-provides-hope-water-woes/feed/0Environmental Funding For Guyana Must Cater for Mangroves Toohttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/environmental-funding-guyana-must-cater-mangroves/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=environmental-funding-guyana-must-cater-mangroves
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/environmental-funding-guyana-must-cater-mangroves/#respondFri, 08 Mar 2019 11:51:50 +0000Desmond Brownhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160516For several decades, Guyana has been using mangroves to protect its coasts against natural hazards, and the country believes its mangrove forests should be included in programmes like the REDD+ of United Nations, in order to access financing to continue their restoration and maintenance, as they complement miles of seawalls that help to prevent flooding. […]

An aerial view of a mangrove forest along the Guyana coast. Approximately 90 per cent of Guyana’s population lives on a narrow coastline strip a half to one metre below sea level. Courtesy: Ministry of the Presidency/OCC/Kojo McPherson

By Desmond BrownGEORGETOWN, Mar 8 2019 (IPS)

For several decades, Guyana has been using mangroves to protect its coasts against natural hazards, and the country believes its mangrove forests should be included in programmes like the REDD+ of United Nations, in order to access financing to continue their restoration and maintenance, as they complement miles of seawalls that help to prevent flooding.

In recent years, the seawall barriers, which have existed since the Dutch occupation of Guyana, have been breeched by severe storms. This resulted in significant flooding, a danger which scientists predict could become more frequent with climate change.

The seawalls must also be maintained, and this is at an enormous cost for Guyana which has been spending an average of 14 million dollars a year to maintain and strengthen the defences.

Joseph Harmon, Minister of State in the Ministry of the President of Guyana, said given the importance of mangroves, they should factor more in discussions about financing to help countries build resilience to natural hazards and climate related risks.

“While we look at climate change, while we look at sustainable livelihoods, we have a forest that is so inaccessible, but the areas that are accessible are also threatened,” Harmon told IPS.

“The fact that we’re on a low coastal plain, the issues of environment and environmental funding must cater for mangroves as well.”

Approximately 90 percent of Guyana’s population lives on a narrow coastline strip a half to one metre below sea level, and Harmon said almost 80 percent of the country’s productive means are on the coast as well.

“We’ve actually started, several years ago, with the establishment of mangroves as a form of defence from rising sea levels,” he said.

“We would want to posit that in the way in which forest coverage calculations are done, that mangrove protection, which protects the persons on the coast, that must also be a feature of your forest coverage because it does the same thing as the forest in the hinterland.”

According to the Nature Conservancy and Wetlands International, mangroves don’t always provide a stand-alone solution, and may need to be combined with other risk reduction measures to achieve high levels of protection.

As is the case with Guyana, appropriately integrated mangroves can contribute to risk reduction in almost every coastal setting, ranging from rural to urban and from natural to heavily degraded landscapes.

The benefits offered by mangrove forests include timber and fuel production, productive fishing grounds, carbon storage, enhances tourism and recreation as well as water purification.

Janelle Christian, the Head of the Office of Climate Change in Guyana, said the mangrove forests provide livelihood opportunities for residents of many coastal communities.

“There are a lot of coastal community women’s groups involved in beekeeping and honey production,” Christian told IPS.

“Along where many of the mangrove forests are located you also have fishing communities. So, for us, it is important both as a form of natural protection and also because of the livelihood opportunities tied to that.”

Mangrove trees grow along the bank of the Demerara River which rises in the central rainforests and flows to the north for 346 kilometres until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

In 1990, the total area of mangrove forest in Guyana was estimated at 91,000 hectares, according to a country report to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. By 2009, this figure stood at 22,632 hectares, notes the same report.

But the country has been on an intensive campaign to protect and restore its coastal mangroves. Christian said in 2010, Guyana started a mangrove restoration project funded by a partnership between the Government of Guyana and the European Union.

The project’s overall objective was to respond to climate change and to mitigate its effects through the protection, rehabilitation and wise use of mangrove ecosystems through processes that maintain their function, values and biodiversity, while meeting the socio-economic development and environmental protection needs in estuarine and coastal areas.

More than 141 hectares of mangrove forest has been restored along Guyana’s coastline since rehabilitation efforts began. The country has about 80,000 hectares in place and continues to accelerate the growth of mangroves, many of which were lost 30 years ago.

“Going along the coast you will see mangrove regrowth in several areas where they were diminished,” Christian said, pointing to the success of the project.

“It’s an important natural mechanism against floods. It also helps in terms of land reclamation because over time the roots of the mangrove allow for sedimentation and so there’s a build-up of land.”

The restoration project also provides employment for residents.

At the various restoration sites, local women – often single mothers – were paid 50 cents for each 14-inch mangrove seedling they grow. It also provided temporary employment opportunities for seedling planters and site monitors.

“So, there are livelihood opportunities that are tied to mangrove-type forests,” Christian said.

Other traditional applications include using the bark of red mangrove trees for tanning leather. It sells for approximately 100 dollars per pound. The leaves of black mangrove trees are used by locals in cooking.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/environmental-funding-guyana-must-cater-mangroves/feed/0Saving for a ‘Rainy Day’ Takes on New Meaning in Caribbeanhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/saving-rainy-day-takes-new-meaning-caribbean/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=saving-rainy-day-takes-new-meaning-caribbean
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/saving-rainy-day-takes-new-meaning-caribbean/#respondMon, 04 Mar 2019 03:32:36 +0000Kenton X. Chancehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160363In the tiny eastern Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, proverbs relating to the weather are very common. Everyone knows that “Who has cocoa outside must look out for rain”, has nothing to do with the drying of the bean from which chocolate is made or the sudden downpours common in this tropical […]

Extreme weather associated to climate change has resulted in million of dollars in loss and damage in St. Vincent and the Grenadines over the past few years. Credit: Kenton X. Chance/IPS

By Kenton X. ChanceKINGSTOWN, Mar 4 2019 (IPS)

In the tiny eastern Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, proverbs relating to the weather are very common.

Everyone knows that “Who has cocoa outside must look out for rain”, has nothing to do with the drying of the bean from which chocolate is made or the sudden downpours common in this tropical nation.

So when the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines announced in 2018 that there was a need to put aside some money for “a rainy day” because of climate change, citizens knew that the expression was both figurative and literal.

In this country, highly dependent on tourism, visitors stay in hotel and other rented accommodation have to contribute 3 dollars per night to the climate change fund.

They join residents who had been contributing to the Climate Resilience Levy, for over one year, paying a one percent consumption charge. The funds go into the Contingency Fund.

As with many other small island developing states, St. Vincent and the Grenadines has had to struggle to finance mitigation and adaptation for climate change.

In the year since the Climate Resilience levy was established, 4.7 million dollars has been saved for the next “rainy day”.

The savings represents a minuscule portion of the scores of million of dollars in damage and loss wrought by climate change in this archipelagic nation over the last few years.

In just under six hours in 2013, a trough system left damage and loss amounting to 20 percent of the GDP and extreme rainfall has left millions of dollars in damage and loss almost annually since then.

The 4.7 million dollars in the climate fund is mere 18 percent of the 25 million dollars that lawmakers have budgeted for “environmental protection” in 2019, including climate change adaptation and mitigation.

However, it is a start and shows what poorer nations can do, locally, amidst the struggle to get developed nations to stand by their commitments to help finance climate change adaptation and mitigation.

“Never before in the history of independent St. Vincent and the Grenadines have we managed to explicitly set aside such resources for a rainy day,” Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves told lawmakers this month as he reported on the performance of the fund in its first year.

He said that in 2019, the contingency fund is expected to receive an additional 4.7 million dollars.

“While this number remains small in the face of the multi-billion potential of a major natural disaster, it is nonetheless significant. If we are blessed with continued good fortune, in the near term, the Contingency Fund will be a reliable, home-grown cushion against natural disasters,” Gonsalves told legislators.

He said the fund will also stand as an important signal to the international community that St. Vincent and the Grenadines is committed to playing a leading role in its own disaster preparation and recovery.

Dr. Reynold Murray, a Vincentian environmentalist, welcomes the initiative, but has some reservations.

“I am worried about levies because very often, the monies generally get collected and go into sources that don’t reach where it is supposed to go,” he told IPS.

“That’s why I am more for the idea of the funding being in the project itself, whatever the initiative is, that that initiative addresses the climate issues.

“For example, if you are building a road, there should be the climate adaption monies in that project so that people build proper drains, that they look at the slope stabilisation, that they look at run off and all that; not just pave the road surface. That’s a waste of time, because the water is going to come the next storm and wash it away.”

Murray told IPS he believes climate change adaptation and mitigation would be best addressed if the international community stands by its expressed commitments to the developing world.

“My honest opinion is that a lot of that financing has to come from the developed countries that are the real contributors to the greenhouse problem,” he told IPS.

“That is not to say that the countries themselves have no obligation. We have to protect ourselves. So there must be a programme at the national level, where funds are somehow channelled into addressing adaptation and mitigation. The mitigation is more with the large, industrialised countries, but small countries like us, especially the Windward Islands, mitigation is our big issues…”

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is making small strides as a time when the finance minister said the 437 million dollar budget that lawmakers approved for 2019 and the nation’s long-term developmental plans, must squarely confront the reality of climate change.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/saving-rainy-day-takes-new-meaning-caribbean/feed/0Q&A: Caught Up in the Opportunities of Climate Change and Less So With Adaptationhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/160360/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=160360
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/160360/#respondSun, 03 Mar 2019 03:24:34 +0000Desmond Brownhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160360Caribbean countries have been signalling their willingness to dedicate time and resources to implement and sustain effective multi-hazard early warning systems. Most countries located in the hurricane belt face being impacted during the yearly Atlantic Hurricane Season. But all Caribbean countries face another challenge—climate change Ronald Jackson, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management […]

Ronald Jackson, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), told IPS in an interview that the ambitions around establishing strong early warning systems in the Caribbean date back to the early 2000s. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond BrownBRIDGETOWN, Mar 3 2019 (IPS)

Caribbean countries have been signalling their willingness to dedicate time and resources to implement and sustain effective multi-hazard early warning systems.

Most countries located in the hurricane belt face being impacted during the yearly Atlantic Hurricane Season. But all Caribbean countries face another challenge—climate change

But he said, “it still remains incipient, despite the fact that there has been some level of investment in the area over time.”

“I think Jamaica would have been the farthest advanced way back in the 90s with the Rio Cobre warning system which included a community warning infrastructure as well as telemetre gauges linked to the met offices and to the National Disaster Management Office,” he said

Jackson believes countries “have gotten more caught up . . . in the opportunities of climate change . . . and less so with advancing what is considered to be adaptation.”

The CDEMA head said his unit has been working with its partners to look at framing a common vision, recognising the need for a more comprehensive investment in establishing people-centred early warning systems at national level.

“We have so far delivered a solutions package for four of our members—Antigua & Barbuda, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines—looking at their gaps and using that to define the priority areas for investment to establish these early warning systems.”

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): What is the state of early warning systems in the Caribbean?

Ronald Jackson (RJ): We are trying to implement interventions around an integrated early warning systems agenda in all our 18 states by 2024, which is the sort of end cycle of this particular strategy. We’ve broken that up into bite size amounts from the point of view of how we are going to try to attract investments at a specific juncture over the life of that strategy, but by 2024 certainly to address the needs of the 18 [Caribbean Community] CARICOM member states as it relates to integrated people-centred early warning systems.

In Guyana for example, they don’t have hurricanes, but they do have flood issues which would require them looking at a flood warning system that is linked to tropical cyclonic events. A country not faced with challenges related to significant flood events may also want to look at their tsunami warning systems. So, we are targeting having a full system in each of our states by 2024.

IPS: What, if anything, would you like to see countries do differently?

RJ: We have gotten more caught up I would think in the opportunities of climate change, which is really the energy aspect of it, and less so with advancing what is considered to be adaptation. There is more of a heavier occupation on the opportunities of climate, which is good.

The opportunities are in the area of renewable energy and how best we can capitalise on that and I think it is a necessary process that we must embark on and embark on fully because of the benefits to be derived.

You can reduce the cost of energy, allowing you to release additional resources into areas of resilience building—one of which is early warning. But the area which is categorised as adaptation in climate change, which is where you will see people use the language more around risk reduction and prevention, is an area that has not gotten the same level of focus as the climate mitigation aspect which is where you look at clean energy, reductions of emissions and so on. That for us is where the greatest threat is. The human security element of climate change is where we should be focusing heavily because we’re talking about people being displaced. You’re talking about floods, you’re talking about the loss of livelihoods. That’s where the greatest threat for Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and in fact any developing island nation, lies. They have to face the challenge of having limited land masses and resources and having that constantly being impacted by the changing climatic conditions—sea level rise, saline intrusion, water scarcity, flood conditions and other environmental and health related issues—all aligned to climate change.

IPS: Given the challenges Caribbean countries have been facing, could it be that there still exist some misconception regarding adaptation?

RJ: As it relates to adaptation, we seem to think a lot of the interventions required are new. They are not new, we’ve been grappling with those things that are packaged under the theme of adaptation for some time. These are largely programme areas at national level which if you look at the analysis they have never, in my mind, in the last 20 years or decade or so received very strong budget allocations. That’s what the analysis is showing us. There could be a lot of questions or reasoning around that. It could be how countries determine what are the main priorities of the day given the limited resources and the fiscally strangling environment in which they are operating.

IPS: Which takes us to the issue of funding. As is the case with almost everything else, procuring funds is an issue. What has been the experience of countries getting funds for sustaining Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems?

RJ: There is programme support from international sources. The challenge there is that it’s been ad-hoc—either financing one element or two elements of the four elements of people-centred early warning. Part of it is also sustainability because there are different elements that exist. The problem also is, can you maintain the infrastructure? Can you replace the parts in a timely manner? So, there is also a sort of maintenance issue that is linked to budget allocation.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/03/160360/feed/0Accelerating the Caribbean’s Climate Resiliencehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/accelerating-caribbeans-climate-resilience/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=accelerating-caribbeans-climate-resilience
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/accelerating-caribbeans-climate-resilience/#respondTue, 26 Feb 2019 13:37:01 +0000Jewel Fraserhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160293The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator launched last year June with the backing of Virgin’s Richard Branson has given itself five years to help the region become climate resilient. Its CEO Racquel Moses, who was appointed in January of this year, told IPS the climate smart accelerator sees itself as an enabler in paving the path […]

The idea for the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator was floated following the devastating 2017 hurricane season which saw two Category Five hurricanes that severely damaged a number of islands.
Hurricane Irma left significant damage to public infrastructure, housing, tourism, commerce, and the natural environment in the British Virgin Islands. Credit: Kenton X. Chance/IPS

By Jewel FraserPORT-OF-SPAIN , Feb 26 2019 (IPS)

The Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator launched last year June with the backing of Virgin’s Richard Branson has given itself five years to help the region become climate resilient.

Its CEO Racquel Moses, who was appointed in January of this year, told IPS the climate smart accelerator sees itself as an enabler in paving the path towards climate resilience for the region. “The horizon for the climate smart accelerator is just five years. We are meant to be a catalyst to get things started. Governments will have the ability to take things forward after that,” she said.

Their primary agenda during that five-year period will be to launch five major,“transformational” projects that will move the region forward towards becoming a climate smart zone, she said.

The idea for the accelerator was floated following the devastating 2017 hurricane season which saw two Category Five hurricanes that severely damaged a number of islands, including Necker Island owned by Richard Branson, and left scores dead.

In the wake of that devastation, an interim team comprising management of Branson’s charitable foundation, Virgin Unite, and Inter-American Development Bank staff members got together and hammered out the idea to make the Caribbean a climate smart zone, said Neil Parsan, public sector lead for the climate smart accelerator. They defined a climate smart Caribbean as one that “modernises digital, physical and social infrastructure to integrate essential activities that are climate adaptive, mitigative and secure a low-carbon future for the region,” he said.

Despite the Caribbean being responsible for less than five percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, its growth rate in emissions between 1990 and 2011 was three times the global average, according to a 2017 USAID report. So 28 governments in Latin America and the Caribbean have eagerly aligned themselves with the accelerator’s objective of making the region a climate smart zone, as have major institutions including the World Bank, the Organisation of American States, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the Caribbean Community, Parsan said.

Racquel Moses was appointed in January as CEO of the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, an initiative backed by the World Bank and Virgin’s Richard Branson to make the region resilient in the face of climate change. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

Moses said the accelerator was “working in tandem” with regional governments to coordinate activities related to climate change. “I have been surprised at how aggressively regional governments have been working on the issue of climate change. We are further along with some governments than with others,” she said. But generally, “they have been quite excited to get involved.”

The five transformational projects she is seeking to have completed over the next five years would also be carried out with governmental support, she said. To qualify as one of the five, a project has to be low carbon, make use of renewable energy, have an impact on a large number of people, be scalable across several countries in the region, create climate-related jobs, and have the potential to be exported outside of the region, she added.

Parsan said dozens of projects are currently under consideration, but the challenge for the Accelerator’s team was “being able to identify mature, bankable, investable, impactful projects that align themselves to the strategic goals of the accelerator.” Though most of the projects under consideration meet some of the criteria, all do not meet every single criterion.

Once the five major projects that the accelerator will be working on are identified, the team will need to source funding to help them get up and running. “We are actually working at putting together teams that can address this funding,” Moses said. She noted that Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley had expressed the desire to see a regional climate investment fund created that would bankroll climate change projects while giving investors a better return on their investments than the current market rate.

The accelerator’s team had met with managers of global funds “to find out legally how they work, and how to get multiple funders, multiple countries, multiple companies working together.” Though she declined to specify what types of projects are currently under consideration, for reasons of confidentiality, Moses said all projects identified must move the region forward to achieving its climate smart goals, including having a low carbon footprint.

At the same time, in the light of the region’s relatively small contribution to GHG emissions, the accelerator is also hoping to facilitate the region’s export of climate professionals whose expertise would have been developed while working on climate-related jobs in the Caribbean. Moses said the accelerator also wants to help provide grants for smaller, climate-related projects and will be announcing awards soon for some of these.

Momentum is continuing to build around the accelerator, Parsan said. “There is definitely an uptick and daily I am taking calls. A lot of interest comes from the Caribbean, which is great, a lot of young entrepreneurs. We also have a lot of U.S. companies expressing interest.” He said about 50 percent of the companies reaching out to the Accelerator are outside of the Caribbean, including some multinational companies. Among these Is AirBnB which was mentioned in the announcement of the launch as providing free housing to relief workers during natural disasters.

Energy companies also are reaching out to the accelerator. “They say they are perceived as being part of the problem. They ask, how can we be part of the solution?” Parsan said.

And though Moses does not believe being female helped her to get the top job, the accelerator is also concerned about issues of gender parity in the execution of its projects, she said.

Also on her wishlist as CEO of the accelerator is seeing the Caribbean play its part in reducing carbon emissions by becoming more energy efficient, and doing more to protect its marine environment.

But mostly, “the thing that keeps me up at at night is ensuring we are working fast enough…to make sure everything we do benefits the region,” she told IPS.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/accelerating-caribbeans-climate-resilience/feed/0Taking the Lead in Fight Against Climate Changehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/taking-lead-fight-climate-change/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=taking-lead-fight-climate-change
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/taking-lead-fight-climate-change/#respondFri, 22 Feb 2019 17:31:39 +0000A. D. McKenziehttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160245As the grandchild of Jamaican citizens who moved to Great Britain, Monique Taffe says she inherited a tradition of recycling and learned not to be part of the “throwaway culture”, as some environmentalists have labelled consumerist societies. “I saw how my grandmother re-used things, and that was passed down to my mother who inspired me […]

As the grandchild of Jamaican citizens who moved to Great Britain, Monique Taffe says she inherited a tradition of recycling and learned not to be part of the “throwaway culture”, as some environmentalists have labelled consumerist societies.

“I saw how my grandmother re-used things, and that was passed down to my mother who inspired me to do the same,” said Taffe, who wants to use waste materials and recycled fabrics in fashion design.

The 22-year-old London-based designer is a recent graduate of a British fashion school and she participated in the 3rd Women4Climate conference that took place Feb. 21 in Paris. She joined other young women from around the world, including from several Latin American countries, who have launched sustainability projects and are being mentored by member cities of C40, a network of 94 “megacities” committed to addressing climate change – and which co-organised the conference titled “Taking the Lead”.

Taffe has started a project to design maternity sportswear, encouraging expectant mothers to exercise during their pregnancy. All the clothing is being made from recycled textiles and objects at her Taffe Jones startup company, she told IPS.

She is also one of 10 finalists from some 450 contestants for London’s Mayors Entrepreneur Programme 2018, in which the city linked to the Women4Climate Mentoring Programme. The aim is to develop innovative businesses that are meant to tackle climate change.

“Women leaders played a pivotal role in negotiating the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 and will be crucial to its success in the future,” says Women4Climate, which was launched in 2016. “Now more than ever, enhancing women’s participation and leadership will be critical to securing a healthy, prosperous and sustainable future for us all.”

Taffe said in an interview that she would like to see young people in Britain, the Caribbean and around the world getting together via social media to share best practices for textile recycling. This could include information about leaving used clothing in central depots or designated places, where designers and others could retrieve material. Recycling in the fashion industry could have a positive environmental impact, as the sector is one of the most polluting, according to experts.

The United Nations Environment Programme says that the fashion industry “produces 20 percent of global wastewater and 10 percent of global carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping.” The agency adds that “textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally and it takes around 2,000 gallons of water to make a typical pair of jeans”.

At the U.N. Environment Assembly next month, the agency will “formally launch the U.N. Alliance on Sustainable Fashion to encourage the private sector, governments and non-governmental organisations to create an industry-wide push for action to reduce fashion’s negative social, economic and environmental impact,” the U.N. says.

With clothing factories across Latin America and the Caribbean, this is an area that environmentalists are addressing as well, with organisations saying that the main focus is on waste management, including textiles and plastics that pollute the region’s beaches.

The Jamaica Environmental Trust, an NGO based in Kingston, emphasises recycling, conducts beach clean-ups with volunteers, and works to protect air and water quality, a spokesperson told IPS. Its leadership team consists mostly of young women, like Taffe, who work to sensitise the public to environmental and climate issues.

“Raising awareness will help other young people to see what’s being done and make it easier for us to form alliances for climate action,” Taffe said.

She and other observers have noted the measures taken in the Caribbean to ban single-use plastic bags and straws and to expand the use of solar power. The Jamaican government, for instance, announced last year that it wants the country to reach 50 percent renewable energy by 2030, up from the previous policy of 30 percent.

Although no Caribbean city is a member of C40, attending international conferences such as Women4Climate was one way of bringing ecological entrepreneurs together to share experiences, participants said.

In fact, forming international links was a central theme of the event, hosted by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo (the initiator of the Women4Climate idea) and held in the French capital’s imposing city hall – flanked by the blue and green bicycles of the city’s bike-sharing scheme.

Representing cities such as Quito (Ecuador), Mexico City, and Santiago (Chile), Taffe and other women from around the world shared projects on sustainability and carbon-emissions reduction. They described ventures to improve species conservation in towns, understand and stop urban sprawl, transform restaurant waste into biogas and increase textile recycling.

Young innovators also presented technology solutions in a Women4Climate Tech Challenge.

“Climate change often has impact first on the lives of women … who traditionally are the ones taking care of the family, so women’s skills should be acknowledged,” said Hidalgo at the conference. “This is not to say women are better than men but that women have different skills and competences that are crucial in the fight against climate change.”

Hidalgo said policy makers and activists had to “think locally to act globally”.

Participants in the conference included women mayors from several cities – Freetown, Sierra Leone; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dakar, Senegal; and Sydney, Australia – alongside several male mayors working to address climate change.

“We cannot fight against climate change effectively without empowering women,” said Rodacio Rodas, the mayor of Quito. He described food-security and urban garden projects that employ women and added that at the “community” level, women could be empowered and could empower themselves to take action.

Many delegates, however, highlighted the lack of national support for climate action by some male leaders, with Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, deploring the global effects of climate-sceptic governments.

“We’re as devastated across the world by Trump as you are in the U.S.,” Moore said, referring to the U.S. president’s lack of support for the Paris Agreement on climate change, but she added that the prime minister of Australia was not “much better”.

“It’s very depressing times, but we don’t despair … we fully support our young community coming out and telling our national government to act responsibility. Full strength to our young communities.”

In a movement known as “Youth Strike 4 Climate”, led by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, students in several countries have been staying out of school on certain days to protest inaction by their governments against global warming. “Young people see what’s happening, they know the science,” Moore said.

Student participants at the Women4Climate conference included 17-year-old Youna Marette, a Belgian high school activist who was one of the keynote speakers.

“We’ll continue to fight, strike … for our future,” Marette declared, urging governments to create more inclusive societies and to increase action to protect the planet.

For Taffe, the up-and-coming designer, thinking of the future and a liveable world is a strong motivation. “My grandmother passed down ways to live sustainably, and I want to carry that on,” she told IPS. “We have to re-use and recycle and do what we can wherever we live.”

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]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/taking-lead-fight-climate-change/feed/0‘No Way to Defend Ourselves Against the Onslaught of Climate Change’http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/no-way-defend-onslaught-climate-change/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=no-way-defend-onslaught-climate-change
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/no-way-defend-onslaught-climate-change/#respondThu, 21 Feb 2019 13:24:11 +0000Desmond Brownhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160227Two of the most prominent women in the Caribbean nation of Suriname are speaking out about developed countries that release large volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. First Lady Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring and Speaker of the National Assembly Jennifer Geerlings-Simons say Suriname and other countries in the region are feeling the brunt of the effects […]

Suriname’s First Lady Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring says the Caribbean nation has been affected by climate change as it has experienced many destructive floods. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond BrownPARAMARIBO, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

Two of the most prominent women in the Caribbean nation of Suriname are speaking out about developed countries that release large volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

First Lady Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring and Speaker of the National Assembly Jennifer Geerlings-Simons say Suriname and other countries in the region are feeling the brunt of the effects of climate change.

“If we go to the interior of our country, then we see that we have had a lot of floods in those areas. These floods are destructive for the people who are living there. The effects are clearly noticeable especially to the women and the children,” Bouterse-Waldring told IPS.

“In the coastal area . . . we have had a lot of very strong winds. These winds, actually we never had them before, so it’s also new to us. These are all things that we are facing now with climate change.”

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Maria and Irma that devastated Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and others in 2017, many countries are still struggling to recover.

Geerlings-Simons told IPS: “Some of our countries have seen devastation and we have seen examples in 2017 and 2018 of what will happen to our countries if at any point in time, a hurricane or any other type of disaster happens.”

“You can start rebuilding your economy . . . but next year another hurricane might come and wipe you out again. Did you contribute to clime change? No, you just get hit by it. How would Suriname recover from one hurricane? Seventy-five percent of our people live on the coast and 75 percent or more of our economy is right here. How will we recover? Our homes are not built for hurricanes,” Geerlings-Simons said, adding that

The Speaker of Suriname’s National Assembly said that more than 1,000 homes lost their roofs in extreme weather conditions over the last 10 years. Previously, this sort of destruction to homes due to the weather was unheard of.

“So, we’re feeling the effects right now,” she said.

Jennifer Geerlings-Simons Suriname’s Speaker of the National Assembly says poor and even highly forested countries have no way to defend themselves against this onslaught of climate change which is already happening. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Geerlings-Simons said countries like Suriname, whose forests are actually aiding many other parts of the world, should get something in return. Not only do forests provide oxygen to the world, but according to the World Wide Fund For Nature two billion people either directly or indirectly rely on them for food, shelter and food security etc.

“We have no way as poor countries or even a highly forested countries to defend ourselves against this onslaught of climate change which is already happening, and which is actually threatening our future in the relatively short term of a few decades,” Geerlings-Simons told IPS.

“We as highly forested countries should . . . have an international fund in which we put some money if we push carbon into the air, and we get some money if we take it out of the air.”

Geerlings-Simons said this has already been tried and proven in Costa Rica. Twenty-two years ago, Costa Rica was the first in the world to start a nationwide scheme for compensating landowners for preserving their forests when it embarked on its national programme of payment for environmental services (PES).

“If you pay someone to keep the forest standing, they will keep it standing because they don’t have to give it to someone to cut it down to get something to eat,” Geerlings-Simons said.

“I am sure that if Europe, the United States or China would develop some kind of mechanism, some kind of machine, everybody would gladly be paying for it because it would strengthen their economy.

“But now, finally after a few hundred years, some money has to come to this part of the world, at this moment where we are facing a very dire situation. The [International Panel on Climate Change] IPCC is not some kind of scaremongering organisation and they really gave us a stern warning. You do something, you get paid for it. Why is this an exception?” she added.

Last year, the IPCC released a report assessing the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees C.

But as global emissions continue to rise, hopes of containing the planet’s warming well below 2 degrees C–the headline target of the Paris Agreement–are fading.

“Why do we have to beg for money while delivering a service that put carbon into the air? The only way that some people will start reducing their carbon is when they have to pay. This is the way this world works,” Geerlings-Simons said.

High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) nations hosted a major conference in Suriname earlier this month.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/no-way-defend-onslaught-climate-change/feed/0Wake Up and Smell the Organic Coffeehttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/wake-smell-organic-coffee/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wake-smell-organic-coffee
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/wake-smell-organic-coffee/#commentsWed, 20 Feb 2019 10:35:45 +0000Busani Bafanahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=160206In 1992, the idea of replanting her father’s ruined coffee farm seemed foolhardy at the time. But in retrospect it was the best business decision that Dorienne Rowan-Campbell, an international development consultant and broadcast journalist, could have made. Nearly three decades later, Rowan-Campbell grows organic coffee on her two hectare, Rowan’s Royale farm. The nearly 60-year-old […]

Dorianne Rowan-Campbell is an organic coffee farmer in Jamaica. Taking over her father’s farm in 1992 and turning it into an organic one was a huge risk at the time. However, she sustainably grows 1,800 coffee trees and harnesses nature to deal with pests, rather than using pesticides. Courtesy: Dorienne Rowan-Campbell

By Busani BafanaBULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Feb 20 2019 (IPS)

In 1992, the idea of replanting her father’s ruined coffee farm seemed foolhardy at the time. But in retrospect it was the best business decision that Dorienne Rowan-Campbell, an international development consultant and broadcast journalist, could have made.

Nearly three decades later, Rowan-Campbell grows organic coffee on her two hectare, Rowan’s Royale farm. The nearly 60-year-old farm is situated on a steep slope in western Portland, a parish in northeast Jamaica overlooking the famous Blue Mountains, known for their coffee plantations.

Rowan-Campbell is a select grower of the famous Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, one of the most rare and expensive coffees, favoured for making delectable espresso.

“I was foolhardy I just wanted to get up in the mountains and try farming,” Rowan-Campbell tells IPS about her foray into growing coffee, an energy-boosting beverage loved the world over, which may well become scarce, thanks to climate change.

Freshly picked coffee beans. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

Shifting to organic farming a big risk but not for nature

Growing organic coffee was a major shift from conventional coffee farming but it was a big bet. Her father grew coffee the conventional way using polluting pesticides, herbicides and industrial fertilisers to manage pests and diseases while maintaining soil nutrition. She cultivates over half a hectare of the farm with more than 1,800 coffee trees.

“Organic came [about] because everyone said ‘You need a big 50-60 gallon drum to mix pesticides’ and I thought not me,” says Rowan-Campbell, a former Commonwealth Director of the Women and Development Programme at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.

She beat the odds of having initially a poor knowledge about organic farming. Her husband and small staff were trained in organic farming techniques. And the organic farming experiment worked. In 2002, BCS OEKO-GARANTIE in Germany—which certifies some 35 percent of all organic products in the country— certified the farm organic.

Since 2004, it has been inspected and certified annually by the Certification of Environmental Standards (CERES), an organic certification agency that uses the presence of birds as one indication of environmental balance.

A 2006 study, by Humbolt University and the University of the West Indies, into birds as vectors of pest control found that although Rowan’s Royale was the smallest farm in the sample, it had the most birds, the greatest variety of birds and the least coffee berry borer (a beetle harmful to coffee crops).

“As an organic farmer, I have to harness nature and work with it because we do not use any chemicals on my farm. I have insects and birds and they eat more than 50 percent of any pests that would attack my coffee so the quality of the coffee is naturally protected,” she says, explaining that she mulches and prepares natural compost for the coffee trees and manages pests and diseases with natural chemicals.

“We have coffee rust disease right now, decimating the coffee industry in Central, South America and the Caribbean. Some people are using extremely strong chemicals to deal with it. I use a mixture of garlic and water. It works, and I share it with all the farmers.”

An estimated 4,000 farmers are growing Blue Mountain Coffee in Jamaica. This year Rowan-Campbell expects to harvest up to four tonnes of coffee beans and is marketing the coffee in America, Europe and Asia.

Dorianne Rowan-Campbell’s farm is a select producer of the famous Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee, one of the most rare and expensive of coffees, favoured for making delectable espresso. Courtesy: Dorienne Rowan-Campbell

Beating climate change

Once Rowan-Campbell packed a packaged, a box with various coffee roasts and sent it to Prince Charles, the future king of England via a courier. But he never got it.

“He had asked about organic coffee and was told there was none,” she remembers. “Organic farming is an adaptation strategy against climate change and I try to teach others.”

Coffee is vulnerable to temperature change as it only grows at specific temperatures around the tropics.

Scientific research is showing that climate change will reduce coffee growing areas around the world by up to 88 percent by 2050. It has become necessary for more than 25 million coffee farmers in more than 60 tropical countries to adapt to climate change using a blend of techniques such as shade improvement and crop rotation.

“Our results suggest that coffee-suitable areas will be reduced 73–88 percent by 2050 across warming scenarios, a decline 46–76 percent greater than estimated by global assessments,” says a study by the PNAS journal.

Coffee is the second most commonly traded commodity in the world, trailing only as a source of foreign exchange to developing countries, according to the International Coffee Organisation.

Bouyed by global demand for organic produce, Rowan-Campbell—an active member of the Jamaica Organic Agriculture movement—is also growing root vegetables and makes organic jams and marmalade.

“For me organic farming it is the most important thing in farming because it says you are building a sustainable future for your great [grand] children,” she said.

However, what has made organic farming work? “Probably love and passion,” she says.

“I think it is important that in Jamaica we have this wonderful flavour of coffee. It is a gift because coffee is grown at a certain elevation and the soil is good.

“When I started, I did not know I was taking such a major step in Jamaica. I have many women who come to me and say they want to grow organic.”

Since 2004, the farm purchased by her father in 1960 has weathered four hurricanes with Hurricane Dean in 2007 damaging close to 70 of the coffee trees. Despite this, Rowan-Campbell says organic methods have prevented landslides and soil erosion on the farm.

Rowan-Campbell is a certified inspector and trains other farmers in organic farming and promoting certification. Last year she was part of an initiative to develop a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) standard for organic coffee production.

Organic coffee farmers in Jamaica have had to overcome the challenges of poor regulations for organic coffee, high license fees and local certification.

Rowan-Campbell says she has no plans of expanding the business. She wants to keep it small, efficient, profitable and delivering high quality export coffee.

“I am meticulous. I want only well ripened cherries and I reap a little at a time. No big pay-out at end of the day, but sustainable production and high quality coffee.”

The island state of Jamaica is vulnerable to climate change which has in turn threatened both its economy and food production. But the Caribbean nation is taking the threat seriously and it has constructed a robust policy framework to support national climate action, particularly when it comes to promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA).

“Climate change is a threat to Jamaica,” Una May Gordon, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, told IPS. “We have pulled all the stops to deal with it in a smart way. Developing and implementing effective policies has been our weapon to fight climate change especially to protecting agriculture, a key economic sector.”

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), CSA pursues the triple objectives of sustainably increasing productivity and incomes, adapting to climate change, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions where possible. Though this does not imply that every practice applied in every location should produce ‘triple wins’.

The Climate Change Division was created in 2013 in a deliberate attempt to place specific emphasis on the climate agenda. Jamaica recognised that climate change was affecting the country’s different sectors and instituted measures such as better management of water resources, adopting sustainable farming practices and planting crops that can withstand erratic weather conditions.

Adopting climate smart agriculture approaches has informed the country’s development agenda, said Gordon.

As the focal point for climate change in Jamaica, the Climate Change Division has facilitated the streamlining of climate change throughout the government structures.Gordon explains how Jamaica, which signed and ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement, has implemented resilience-building measures in the agriculture sector as part of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): How has climate change affected Jamaica specifically with regards to agriculture?

Una May Gordon (UG): Agriculture is one of the major sectors and major drivers of the Jamaican economy and it is probably the largest employer of labour within the economy. Agriculture is grounded on the rural economy and therefore affects the lives of small farmers and farm families. Drought, the [low] rainfall, the disparity in the cycles, increasing pests and disease and all these are climate related and we have seen the impacts on the production and the livelihood of the farmers.

On the other hand, there is the sea level rise; the large part of the Jamaican coastline is being impacted. Most of our critical infrastructure is within 5 kilometres of the coast and therefore many coastal communities [are also based along the coast]. We are seeing the impacts on the coastal communities and with the warming waters, we have seen less fish catches.

IPS: How do these policies work?

UG: The climate change policy has actions and activities to implement to make agriculture resilient and sustainable by adopting mitigation measures such as water management, better cropping to reduce agriculture’s environment impacts.

The agriculture ministry has a climate change focal point. This focal point belongs to a network of focal points. One of the structures that were created out of the policy framework is the climate change focal point network, which integrates and coordinates climate actions in the country. We recognise that a number of rural women are impacted by climate change. Therefore, the gender disparity between male and female is a gap we are working to close as we promote CSA initiatives.

IPS:How is CSA working?

UG: CSA, for us, is agriculture that is sustainable, that speaks to farmers and adapts to climate change. From a mitigation point of view, we talk about efficiency and reduction of waste and support for forest development.

Many farmers are on the borderline with the forests. In Jamaica, the preservation of the forest is about the sustainability of the production system and the adaptation and mitigation efforts of the farmers.

IPS: How do we get farmers to change their behaviour and recognise this?

UG: If farmers are not aware of the weather-related impacts, then they will be not be able to take action. And so the Met Service is a full partner in this project and we are using ICTs to provide farmers with real time weather data through their mobile phones.

If a farmer knows that today or next week there will have more rain, then they will plan better as opposed not knowing what the weather will be like. If a farmer knows he will have no soil moisture then he probably takes steps to mulch. Farmers need to have a mind set change and become more proactive and prepare more to meet the challenges and we are arming them with information and skills to adapt.

IPS: How effective has this been?

UG: The project is in its early days but we have seen some results. We have farmers working together. By bringing them together, we are getting a change in minds sets because individually each farmer is doing their part and collectively they do better over time. Jamaica is divided into 14 parishes and this project is in three parishes. Eventually if we can scale up to another three parishes this year, we will be able to cover all.

IPS: What have you learnt from this that can be replicated?

UG: We underestimate the power of ICTs as a solution to addressing climate change. Cellphones are more powerful instruments than we take them to be. They can be a tool of trade for the farmers not only to make calls and so forth, but also to become part of the solutions to advance adaptation efforts because farmers can access value added information timely. Farmers are amenable to change and want to adapt. We are targeting 5,000 farmers across the three parishes. This project, though small in the scheme of things, will have a large impact.

IPS: As a government institution, what have you done to get the buy in of the private sector?

UG: Jamaica is very fortunate because the private sector is involved with us as partner in climate action … Some are retooling their own operations and there are huge investments in climate change now in Jamaica. This makes it easy for the government to scale up their ambition. Recently our Prime Minister announced that we would move from a target we had set on our own NDC of 30 percent renewables by 2025 – 2030 to 50 percent.

We also have invested significantly in clean energy. We have a solar farm and wind farms going up and these are private actions. From an agriculture point of view, the private sector is investing in sustainable agriculture practices where they are using solar energy.

The dialogue with the private sector and the government is at an advanced stage. We are supporting the rest of the Caribbean Region in conducting a scoping study to look at barriers to private sector engagement in climate action.

Suriname’s President, Desiré Delano Bouterse, who this week gathered the High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation nations in Paramaribo for a major conference to discuss the way forward. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond BrownPARAMARIBO, Feb 15 2019 (IPS)

At the Bonn Climate Conference in 2017, Suriname announced its aspirations to maintain its forest coverage at 93 percent of the land area.

For Suriname and other High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) nations, maintaining forest coverage is their contribution to saving the planet from the effects of climate change, something they did not cause.

But HFLD nations have faced a challenge finding a development model that balances their national interests while continuing to deliver eco-services to the world. They say the valuable contribution of especially HFLD developing countries to the climate change challenge is not reflected in climate finance.

These countries – which also include, among others: Panama, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Peru, Belize, Gabon, Guyana, Bhutan, Zambia, and French Guiana – now have a champion at the forefront of their cause.

He is Suriname’s President, Desiré Delano Bouterse, who this week gathered the HFLD nations in Paramaribo for a major conference to discuss the way forward.

“The declaration is one of significance,” Bouterse told IPS in an interview.

“What I want to communicate to the world community is that we should first and foremost note that our planet is in danger and that it calls for common action.”

Bouterse said HFLD developing countries have set themselves on a new path, and that Suriname takes its new assignment very seriously and pledges its dedication.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Mr. President, what was your vision when this conference was being conceptualised?

Desiré Delano Bouters (DDB): It’s more than 30 years that we are facing this issue, and what we have looked at is that countries that are facing the issue of high forestry have difficulties getting financial opportunities. So that is basically the main reason for the conference.

We have forest cover of approximately 94.6 percent. Our commitment to the world is that we will maintain a forest cover of 93 percent. That is a commitment we made.

What we know is that there is a contention between the interest and will to maintain the forest cover, on the one hand. On the other hand are the development challenges with scarce financial resources. Thirdly is the difficult to access financial opportunities. So, what has to happen is that the world community has to understand this commitment and seek a mechanism for easier accessibility to financial mechanisms so that we can therefore get training, we can get capacity building – access to finances in order to maintain this commitment. So, it’s crucial to get that access.

IPS: We have seen so many declarations made before, is there a reason to be optimistic about the Krutu of Paramaribo Joint Declaration on HFLD Climate Finance Mobilisation?

DDB: Yes, there have been declarations but here’s what I think is necessary coming out of this process. There is a need for precise scientific research which will allow us a truthful picture of what we can be given for the offer we make; so that there is a very precise calculation so to speak, so that we don’t estimate but rather know what the value is of the offer we have made.

IPS: What does this declaration mean in terms of financial resources and also benefits to the people of Suriname and other HFLD nations?

DDB: Firstly, the declaration is one of significance, such that we have gathered as like-minded countries to basically face the coming challenges together and therefore approach the world community with one voice in order to overcome the hurdle that we commonly face. And so you should see the declaration in that sense, that we have brought the many heads of countries with similarities together to get mileage out of what we offer.

IPS: You have been charged with championing this cause on behalf of the HFLD nations – You are speaking directly to the international community, what message are you sending right now?

DDB: What I want to communicate to the world community is that we should first and foremost note that our planet is in danger and that it calls for common action. If we neglect coming together to address this danger, we may face a very tragic situation which will then leave our planet worse than we have met it for our children and their children.

IPS: Now that you have adopted the Krutu of Paramaribo Joint Declaration, what is the next step?

DDB: Firstly, what we have to do or know is that the group of countries have identified Suriname as the leader to communicate what we have agreed upon in this conference and as such we have to use each international opportunity to let the world know what we have agreed upon and what we are expecting from them.

We have to, from a common position, reason. We have to reason from a common position and therefore we should approach our position, not from a point of view that the other developed countries should take the lead. No, we should look at it from our point of view.

You should see it as this, politically and economically, being in the Caribbean and South America, we should approach it from a common and joint position. Let me give an example. When you look at CARICOM, even if it’s the United States, CARICOM works together as one. It’s the same when it comes to China, Canada, India or even Europe. Why? Because we’re joined together. We have a common strategy. So, when you’re alone, it’s very difficult. But when you have your structure, they will take you more seriously. That’s why I give the example of CARICOM. There are different, small nations but the big countries – if it’s Russia or India – everybody wants to talk with the 14 CARICOM countries.

IPS: Is there a role for the youth in all of this?

DDB: Yes, we have in our portfolio in CARICOM, the inclusion of the youth, this is something we are proud of. What we have seen here today is that young people have stepped up to the plate and they have made their voices heard. However, I’m also of the belief that we should make the space and give them the opportunity to assume leadership so that they can learn and make errors, but at the same time don’t make the same mistake that we as leaders have made; because before you know it, it’s their turn to be leaders. It is therefore important to allow them that experience so that they can be part of the process.

As High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) nations meet in Suriname at a major conference, it is obvious that the decision made by these countries to preserve their forests has been a difficult but good one.

Both U.N. bodies have supported countries with the design and implementation of national policies and measures to reduce deforestation and manage forests sustainably, hence contributing to the mitigation of climate change and advancing sustainable development.

Forests provide a dwelling and livelihood for over a billion people—including many indigenous peoples. They also host the largest share the world’s biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services, such as water and carbon storage, which play significant roles in mitigating climate change.

Deforestation and forest degradation, which still continue in many countries at high rates, contribute severely to climate change, currently representing about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Amid this, Alexis says HFLD countries need support as they continue to protect their forests.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

For a long time Suriname has maintained 93 percent forest cover of total land area which has been providing multiple benefits to the global community, in particular, combatting climate change for current and future generations. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Inter Press Service (IPS): Can you give a brief synopsis of the work of the UNDP in Suriname?

Armstrong Alexis (AA): The UNDP is a partner in development in Suriname. We specifically focus on resources. We cover a whole spectrum of issues around climate change, renewable energy, the reduction of fossil fuels and adaptation and mitigation measures. We also focus on the issue of forests.

IPS: Why is this meeting important for Suriname, and what was the UNDP’s role in collaborating with the HFLD nations?

AA: Suriname is the most forested country on earth. Approximately 93 percent of the land mass of Suriname is covered by pristine Amazonian forests. So, with 93 percent forest cover, Suriname has traditionally, for centuries, been a custodian of its forests and have preserved its forests while at the same time achieving significant development targets for its people.

Given the role of forests as they relate to climate change and in particular the sequestration of carbon, Suriname genuinely believes, and the science will back that up, that Suriname in fact is a carbon negative country. It stores a lot more carbon than it emits. And there are a number of other countries in the world that the U.N. has defined as Heavily Forested Low Deforestation countries. These are countries that are more than 50 percent covered by forests and at the same time they have the deforestation rate which is way below the international average which I think is .02 percent of deforestation per annum.

These countries have come together through a collaborative effort supported by the UNDP and the UN-DESA.

We’ve brought these countries together because they all have a common purpose, they all have a common story and they all are working towards finding common solutions to ensure that there is:

Recognition of the fact that these countries have traditionally maintained their forests and have not destroyed the forests in the name of development;

Given the relevance of trees and forests to combatting climate change, that these are actually the countries that provide a good example and the best opportunity for serving the earth with high forest cover.

IPS: What is the way forward for the protection of forests?

AA: In every country where there are forests there are activities that result in two things – deforestation, where the trees are cut down and usually not replaced; and you also have what it called forest degradation where the forest is not totally destroyed but it is not as thick, it does not have as many trees and sometimes the trees are much younger for many different reasons, including timber production. So, you might be degrading the quality of the forest but not necessarily deforesting in total.

Those countries that form the HFLD have made commitments with the international community that they will continue to pursue their development objectives without necessarily destroying their forests. And destroying here means either deforestation or degradation.

It’s a challenge because in Suriname for example, the small-scale gold mining sector is the largest driver of deforestation—not timber production, not palm oil as in some countries, and not infrastructure.

IPS: So, what do you say to a country that has gold in the soil? That they should not mine that gold?

AA: It’s difficult to say that to a country when the economy depends on it. How do you say to a country don’t produce timber when the economy of the country depends on it?

There are ways and means of doing it [small-scale mining or timber production] in a sustainable way. There are ways and means of ensuring that in granting concessions whether it be for timber production or small-scale gold mining, that you take into consideration means and approaches for rehabilitation.

You have to take into consideration the biodiversity and the sensitivity of some of those forests and whether or not you value more the biodiversity of that area or the few dollars that you can make by destroying that area’s forests and extracting the gold and extracting the timer.

So, conscious decisions have to be made by governments and our role as UNDP is to provide the government with the policy options, which usually is supported by sound scientific research and data to indicate to them what their real options are and how they can integrate those options in the decisions that they make.

So, it is a difficult choice indeed, but it is a choice that governments have to make to determine whether they want to continue being custodians of the environment or whether they want to pursue interests related only to economic advancement and economic growth.

So far, they’ve done a good job at it. One of the areas that I want to emphasise is that a lot of this work cannot be done by the countries alone, because if you think about it, the market for the timber is not Suriname. The market for the gold is not Suriname.

Usually the companies that come into those countries to do the extractives, they are not even local companies. They are big multinational companies. A country like Suriname or Guyana—those countries cannot take on this mammoth task alone. They need the support of the international community, they need the support of agencies like the U.N., they need the support of the funds that have been established like the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, the Adaptation Fund, and they need the support of the bilateral donors and the countries that have traditionally invested in protecting the forests.